This chart is designed to show the number of federal, state, and local laws that have been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court from 1789 to the current era. The X-axis represents years; the Y-axis indicates the number of laws declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. One unit in the x-axis represents a 10-year period. The number of federal, state, and local laws declared unconstitutional has increased significantly throughout the years (the trend in state and local laws declared unconstitutional shows a more significant increase). The general upward trend is not uniform, however, since personnel changes on the Court affect its judgments about the constitutionality of laws.